Barcelona Architecture : Buildings

Barcelona Architecture

Barcelona is capital of Catalonia (Catalunya), an autonomous region of Spain. It is Spain’s major Mediterranean port and famous for Gaudi, Dali, Miro and Picasso. The city is strong commercially compared to the rest of Spain in an similar way to say Milan and the rest of Italy. The Olympics were staged in Barcelona in 1992 and provided a legacy of good contemporary architecture with many buildings by famous architects.

Catalonia Architecture Guide

The most famous Barcelona building is surely Sagrada Familia by Spanish architect Gaudi. Still under construction, we feature photos of this iconic piece of architecture. The centre of the city – Barri Gothic – is formed from a Roman village, tight-knit alleys, squares and charming cheek-by-jowl buildings. Located outwith is a civilised grid of avenues, Eixample, cut through by the Diagonal. This order is terminated by the hills that ring Barcelona, and of course the Mediterranean Sea.

Probably the most stunning piece of Spanish architecture, a wild and inventive building. Gaudi could be described as a surrealist architect and his work has some resonance with the work of Surrealist artist Salvador Dali. This iconic Barcelona building uses caricatures in stone to portray the story of Christianity but its flamboyance has made it a symbol for the city as a whole.

Casa Mila – ‘The Quarry’: – is a beautiful sculptural building that expresses pure tectonic delight and unlike Sagrada Familia (also by Antoni Gaudi) its architecture is simpler and less specific, therefore in many ways more sophisticated. Gaudi has taken stone and moulded it like lava, achieving pure drama.

Classic Gaudi Architecture
A great place to relax, enjoy the coutryside and gain great views out over Barcelona. The best Gaudi architecture is at the lower, south end of Park Guell, primarily close to the southern entry. A fantastic pink house, the home of Antoni Gaudi for around 20 years is in the middle of the lower section.

World-famous Modern Architecture
For many architects this is their favourite building – it is elegant, beautifuly proportioned and made with quality materials. The detailing is exquisite. The integration of water through two shallow pools brings calmness and reflection to the pavilion.

This iconic Barcelona building 136m high. It is very stylised like many Calatrava buildings. The design could be read as a piece of sculpture carved from pure white marble, or as half a dough-ring speared by a bloated toothpick. This is a show-off building designed to be seen from all over Barcelona to symbolise the power of the Olympic Games coming to Catalonia.

Typical Richard Meier building with rectilinear elements expressed in white metal panels and key parts in white render as organic forms in plan. The architects have created lyrical forms – the building appears successful from many angles. The architect could have engaged more with the context of Barcelona architecture as the building appears similar to ones designed for other cities.

Rather severe building with rough dark blue lavaesque treatment to facades spiced up with cut-outs and jerky glazed strips. These strips are striated with mirrors trying to reduce the weight of the ‘floating blue cheesecake’. Below the macho cantilevers lies what on my visit appeared to be a no-man’s land of patterns and blank facades.

This redevelopment is, like many Barcelona buildings featured, an organic piece of architecture. The interior is functional and not trying to be cool, allowing the market traders to sell their wares in time-honoured tradition. Seen from street level the Santa Caterina facades are moderately playful with changing rhythms, but overshadowed by the roof in more ways than one.

This skyscraper building is 142m high, the third highest in Barcelona in 2005. Designed by French architects – a controversy emerged surrounding how similar the design was to Foster + Partner’s Swiss Re tower in London.

Hotel Porta Fira was designed by the Japanese architecture firm Toyo Ito & Associates and the Spanish firm b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos. The 26-floor hotel tower is 113 m high and located in one of Barcelona’s busiest areas. The lead architect won the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 2013.

A contextual tower that has a double reading, from near and afar, in response to the two scales that such tall buildings must address. Taking the urban directions that form the perimeter of the plot as generators of its form, the building is a trapezoidal prism, sharp and stylized, a clean and serene form, whitish and light.

Barcelona Architecture News

Architecture in BarcelonaBarcelona is a favourite destination among architecture buffs and interested travellers looking to marvel at the sheer genius of Gaudí’s structures, the intricate designs of the Catalan Modernist movement and, of course, the historic masterpieces of Ancient Rome.